


Insufficient data (The "No Substitute" Remix)

by Syrena_of_the_lake



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Healing, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-10-04 01:30:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20462816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Syrena_of_the_lake/pseuds/Syrena_of_the_lake
Summary: When simple recall was insufficient, humans turned to imagination and improvisation. Data would have to find his own way keeping Tasha Yar's memory alive.





	Insufficient data (The "No Substitute" Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flowerdeluce](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flowerdeluce/gifts).
  * Inspired by [No substitute](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18023840) by [flowerdeluce](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flowerdeluce/pseuds/flowerdeluce). 

> Everyone go read the original! Flowerdeluce has a wonderful feel for Data's voice - it's a beautiful piece.

By his definition, Data did not replay his memories of Tasha frequently. Frequency, after all, was not a constant; what would seem often or seldom to a human had different meaning to positronic circuits. He could dedicate computational resources to a particularly thorny navigational problem while reviewing the latest research on dilithium extraction, or while applying De-Min-Droh’s revolutionary resonance technique for the violin to Paganini’s Caprices, or while compiling relevant protocol for a diplomatic visit to Dendrin IV from a gigaquad of source material. Or while remembering the particular acoustic vibrations and pleasing sensation of air across synthetic follicles when Tasha whispered in his ear.

In other words, Data was very good at multitasking. And memories of Tasha were a pleasant counterpoint to a thousand daily tasks. In his off-hours, when he and Spot were alone in their quarters, Data occasionally let the memories take prominence in his pathways, and devoted more positronic resources to reliving the most personally intimate moments he and Tasha had spent together.

Once, he made the mistake of mentioning this to Geordi.

Geordi almost dropped his tricorder into a vat of plasma. “You and Tasha were... _intimate_?” 

“You do not need to whisper, Geordi. It is common knowledge.”

“Not to me.” Geordi whistled. He had the astounding human capability of experiencing and conveying multiple emotions with a single expression, although Data did not always succeed in identifying said emotions.

Data was puzzled. “Geordi, you are my best friend. Surely you were aware that Lieutenant Yar and I had become friends as well?”

“Sounds like you were a hell of a lot more than—wait a minute. When you say _intimate_, Data, do you mean... physically?”

Data cocked his head, trying to navigate the hidden meaning behind the deceptively plain words. “Are you referring to sex?”

“Are _you_?”

“Ah,” said Data, pleased to have uncovered the source of the miscommunication. “My apologies, Geordi. I am not referring to the sexual act of intimacy, but rather to the close mutual friendship—”

“I got you now, Data.” Unaccountably, Geordi looked... relieved? Data filed away the memory for later examination. Along with the unsettling observation that he himself had deliberately avoided clarifying the entire state of affairs.

Interesting. Like _intimacy, affair_ was another word with romantically charged connotations.

Data wished he could share this observation with Tasha. Would she share his perplexity, or would she find it amusing? Then again, he had often failed to correctly anticipate Tasha’s reactions, so perhaps she would have an entirely different response.

Suddenly, it was most distressing that he would never know.

In both an observational and supportive role, Data had seen human grief. Many people talked about their loved ones in a way that “kept their memories alive,” as Counselor Troi had explained it. _My mother would have loved this_, someone would say, or _If only my husband could have seen that,_ or _That’s just what my grandparent would have done_. But Data was never sure where objective knowledge ended and pure imagination began.

Data was programmed to observe, interpret, extrapolate, deduce, make connections and draw conclusions. 

He was programed to calculate “what if”... not to _imagine_ it.

How could he know what Tasha would have thought or said? The available data set in his memory banks was incomplete. It would always be incomplete, because Tasha would not be there to complete it.

Data acknowledged to himself that this could be a metaphor for the greater experience of grieving. And therefore, for him, a substitute.

It was singularly unsatisfying.

Which was why he found himself in the holodeck, in the middle of the night, with only Spot for company while he tried to program a facsimile of Tasha Yar.

“I am uncertain how to program spontaneity,” he admitted to her likeness. When she failed to respond, he looked to Spot. The cat licked her hindquarters. 

“That is not a constructive suggestion,” said Data.

And yet, was it not similar to a suggestion Tasha herself had once given in answer a question Data himself had asked? Apparently his question had been rude, however inadvertently so, and Tasha had apologized for what she had called a “knee-jerk” response. (Data was still uncertain as to the connotations of that term: a violent action, or merely a reflexive one? With Tasha, they could be synonymous.)

He looked at the unmoving holocharacter. It looked like Tasha, but it lacked her vitality.

Even in her sleep, she had never been so still.

Data was curiously reluctant to enter the command to unpause the hologram. 

Spot mewed loudly in complaint.

“Perhaps you are right, Spot. I do not think Tasha would have wanted this.” Data was no longer certain _he_ wanted it either. But at the same time, immersing himself in his perfectly recalled memories was no longer enough.

It was a conundrum, and the person whose help he most wanted was the only one who could not help him solve it.

Data deleted the character before she ever spoke a word. 

* * *

“I need your help to enhance my programming,” he told Geordi.

“What kind of enhancement?”

Data hesitated. “I want... to daydream.”

* * *

His memories of the subsequent days were faulty. 

Mainly, he remembered Tasha.

Impossibly, there were newly formed memory engrams of her. Conversations he was almost sure they had never had. Long walks on a planet he was almost sure he had never visited. Nights he was almost sure they had never spent together. 

Data accessed the files and focused all his considerable attention on them. Could it be...?

“Data!” Counselor Troi’s voice was sharp. “That’s enough now.” 

Data opened his eyes. Tasha was not there, but the counselor was.

“Come back to us,” she said, more softly.

“I am here,” said Data in some confusion. “Where else would I be?”

_With her._

He felt the engrams racing, spreading, overtaking his positronic pathways. 

“These... are not real memories,” he said slowly.

“No,” said the counselor. It was the gentle voice she used with her patients.

Data was aware of Geordi and Doctor Crusher in the background. That was only logical. Data’s new daydreaming program had obviously malfunctioned.

So why was the counselor there? 

“Do you know what happened, Data?”

“I surmise that I was... daydreaming.”

“All day, every day,” muttered Geordi to himself. To Data’s auditory processors, the words were perfectly clear.

“I apologize,” Data said earnestly. “I did not anticipate those effects.”

“It must have been overwhelming,” said Counselor Troi.

“I do not remember,” said Data.

Doctor Crusher stepped next to the biobed. “All your memory circuits were taken up with your daydreaming program,” she explained. “It left you unable to encode new memories — _any_ new memories — except for the ones generated by your daydreams.”

That explained the inexplicable, exponential increase in his memories of Tasha. Not long ago, he had expressed regret over the lack of additional data. Now, he regretted the glut of false daydreams cluttering up his circuits. How would he ever sort out the _true_ memories from the rest?

The daydreams had been very pleasant while they lasted — at the expense of both his duties and his living friends aboard the _Enterprise_. 

It was not an experiment that bore repeating.

“I wish to delete the program,” Data declared.

Doctor Crusher, Geordi and Counselor exchanged a look. 

“Data,” said Geordi, and then fell silent.

Doctor Crusher laid a hand on his arm. “When we do that, the memory engrams created by the program will be wiped. Permanently.”

“I see,” said Data.

Swimming with Tasha on Risa. Composing and performing an original violin composition for her. Watching her cuddle Spot’s kittens. None of those things had ever happened. Yet today he could call them up as vividly as yesterday (a figure of speech, as he did not actually remember yesterday). Tomorrow, he would have none of it.

“Will my real memories remain undamaged?”

“Yes,” Geordi hastened to assure him. “We’ve isolated the daydream engrams and quarantined them. Your real memories will be fine. You’ll never know the difference.”

Counselor Troi winced.

“I understand,” said Data. “Please proceed.”

* * *

After making his apologies to the captain, and to Spot, Data went to Ten Forward. He was uncertain how to explain recent events to Guinan, but she already knew.

“I didn’t know Tasha,” she said, “but you did.”

Data nodded.

“So why the daydreams?”

Data considered the question. No one else had asked him _why_. “Because I had believed the memories were insufficient. I was mistaken.”

“Insufficient for what?”

Data raised his eyebrows. “For imagining what she would do or say in certain situations. I can extrapolate based on my observations, but I cannot _know_.”

Guinan nodded. “We all experience grief in our own way, Data.”

“I cannot grieve,” he corrected her.

“In your own way, that’s exactly what you have been doing.” She leaned across the bar. “You miss her, and you tried to fill that void. It’s only natural — for anyone. But ask yourself this: would Tasha want you to lose yourself in daydreams of the past?”

“No, she would not.”

“How do you know?”

Data cocked his head, processing the question. “Because that is not the kind of person Tasha was. She valued life, new experiences, curiosity and exploration.”

“And you cannot _imagine_ her otherwise?” Guinan stressed the word.

Data opened his mouth and paused. “No,” he said after a moment. “I cannot.”

“Then remember her as she was,” advised Guinan, “and imagine what she would say based on your observations and experiences with her. Not a holo-algorithm. Not programmed daydreams. You knew the real Tasha better than the any program ever could.”

“But am I not the sum of my programming?”

Guinan shook her head. “Now what would Tasha say to that?”

Suddenly Data had no trouble concluding — or imagining — the answer. “Tasha would say that I am more than that. I would like to believe that is so.”

“Did you trust her to tell you the truth?”

“Yes.” He answered firmly, without the hesitation that had marked these past few days.

“Then when you doubt yourself, trust her.”

Data accessed his memory banks and the image of Tasha smiling at him. 

It was sufficient.


End file.
